Never Let Me Go Characters: Tommy D
Tommy D After Ruth, Tommy is the character who has the biggest impact on Kathy’s life. He starts out as an outcast whom Kathy takes pity on because the other children refuse to play with him and play pranks on him. As far back as Kathy can remember Tommy has been having a hard time at Hailsham. It all starts in art class when Tommy draws a very childish picture of an elephant. He does it on purpose because he isn’t very artistic, but the guardian teaching the class, Miss Geraldine, is a kind and gentle woman who tries to “look at the picture with kindness and understanding. And probably guessing that Tommy was in danger of getting stick from the others, she went too far the other way, actually finding things to praise, pointing them out to the class. That was how the resentment started” (page 18). The other children are resentful that Tommy isn’t even trying because the things they create are put in Exchanges: “For each thing you put in, you were paid in Exchange Tokens – the guardians decided how many your particular masterpiece merited – and the on the day of the Exchange your went along with your tokens and ‘bought’ the stuff you liked. The rule was you could only buy work done by students in your own year” (page 14 – 15). Tommy isn’t keeping up in art, but has been hiding it by deliberately creating childish pictures. But now everyone is “watching to see what he did next. It seemed he did make an effort for a while, but he’d no sooner have started on something there’d be sneers and giggles all around him…the harder he tried, the more laughable his efforts turned out” (page 19). Tommy starts to have tantrums and this escalates the taunting. But then it stops. The pranks are still going on but Tommy keeps his temper and soon people get bored and leave him alone. Kathy notices this at once and asks Tommy why he’s changed. Tommy tells her of the time he had a chat with Miss Emily and she assured him that “If he had genuinely tried…but…just couldn’t be very creative, then it was quite all right, he wasn’t to worry about it. It was wrong for anyone…to punish him for it, or put pressure on him in any way. It simply wasn’t his fault” (page 25). Tommy can’t quite grasp the meaning, but Miss Emily also tells him that they’re not being taught enough about what will happen to them one day. Later, when Ruth and Tommy have broken up and Ruth ropes Kathy in to convince Tommy to give her another chance, Kathy thinks he’s upset about the situation with Ruth, but it doesn’t seem to enter his mind at all. “Tommy still looked puzzled. Finally he did another little laugh, but this time it was a real one. ‘I see what you mean,’ he mumbled…’To be honest, Kath…that’s not really what’s bothering me. It’s something else altogether. I just keep thinking about it all the time. About Miss Lucy.’ (page 98) Miss Lucy tracks Tommy down to have another talk with him: “I made a mistake, when I said what I did to you. And I should have put you right about it long before now.’ (page 99). Miss Lucy tells Tommy that his “art is important. And it’s not just because it’s evidence. But for your own sake. You’ll get a lot from it, just for yourself.” (page 99). She says Madame’s gallery is important and that there are things she can’t tell Tommy about, “things about Hailsham, about your place in the wider world…But perhaps one day, you’ll try and find out…But why should be any different? The students who leave here, they never find out much” (page 100). She encourages him to try to “make up for lost time” (page 100) and to try to improve his art. Kathy suddenly remembers she’s supposed to talk to Tommy about Ruth, but it seems as if this is the last thing on his mind. When she tries to get him to listen to her, by saying “Look, you fool, you’re not going to get many more chances. Don’t you realise, we won’t be here together like this much longer?” she’s surprised by his “calm and considered” reaction: “‘I do realise that, Kath. That’s exactly why I can’t rush back into it with Ruth. We’ve got to think about the next move carefully.’ Then he sighed and looked right at me. ‘Like you said, Kath. We’re going to leave here soon. It’s not like a game any more. We’ve got to think carefully.’ I was suddenly lost for what to say and just sat there tugging away at the clovers. I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn’t look up.” (page 101) It seems as if Tommy is seeing Kathy in another light and they may get together, but then Miss Lucy leaves Hailsham and this seems to be a terrible blow for Tommy. When Kathy goes to tell him the news, she sees he already knows and his “eyes looked empty” (page 102). Soon afterwards Tommy and Ruth get back together and they move to the cottages. During the trip to Norfolk to see Ruth’s possible, Tommy and Kathy bond while looking for a replacement for Kathy’s tape. “We were enjoying looking through all those things together; drifting apart then finding ourselves side by side again, maybe competing for the same box of bric-a-brac in a dusty corner lit up by a shaft of sun.” (page 157). When she finds the tape they’re both disappointed that the fun is over. Tommy reveals that he knows why Kathy looks through the porn magazines and when she confides in him about her sexual urges he comforts her and says everyone gets them. Tommy confides in Kathy that he’s started drawing so that he and Ruth can have a shot at getting a deferral because he believes they use the art to determine if you’re really in love. He says he’s drawing imaginary animals and Kathy wants to tell him it’s daft and that others will laugh at him again but bites her tongue. When he shows her the drawings she’s at first hesitant to praise them but the longer she looks at them the more she is impressed. She tells him they’re good and she “knew how happy she'd made him (page 173). But afterwards Ruth manipulates the situation so that Tommy thinks Kathy thinks his drawings are daft and soon afterwards Kathy leaves the cottages to become a carer. Years later when Kathy has been a carer for a while she hears Ruth’s first donation didn’t go well and decides to become her carer. Ruth seems to want to make up for what she did to keep Kathy and Tommy apart. She asks Kathy if they can go on a trip to see a boat that’s stranded on the shore and take Tommy with them. Tommy’s already had two donations but is still quite healthy. “I wasn’t much good as a carer,” Tommy says, “Never learnt how to drive even. I think that’s why the notice for my first came so early. I know it’s not supposed to work that way, but I reckon that’s what it was. Didn’t mind really. I’m a pretty good donor, but I was a lousy carer” (page 207). Ruth urges Tommy and Kathy to try to get a deferral and gives them Madame’s address. Then she asks Kathy to become Tommy’s carer, and Kathy obeys her wishes. Kathy becomes Tommy’s carer “almost a year to the day after that trip to see the boat. I wasn’t long after Tommy’s third donation” (page 217). Tommy needs a lot of rest and this quiet time eases them into their new relationship. She read to him, they chatted and when he fell asleep, she did her reports. “The years seemed to melt away, and we were so easy with each other” (page 217). They start having sex, but “right from that first time, there was something in Tommy’s manner that was tinged with sadness, that seemed to say: ‘Yes, we’re doing this now and I’m glad we’re doing it now. But what a pity we left it so late.’” (page 218). After Tommy and Kathy find out that there’s no such thing as a deferral, Tommy is so overwhelmed with emotion that he asks Kathy to stop by the side of the road and he gets out and lets the full force of his rage out. Kathy gets out and holds onto him. “He tried to shake me off, but I kept holding on, until he stopped shouting, and I felt the fight go out of him. Then I realised he too had his arms aroung me. And so we stood together like that…and for a moment, it seemed like we were holding onto each other because that was the only way to stop us being swept away into the night” (page 251). Later Kathy says to Tommy she thinks the reason he always had tantrums was because at some level he knew something that the rest of the students didn’t (page 252). Tommy starts to pull away from Kathy and to identify more with the other donors. He asks Kathy to get him another carer because he doesn’t want to be weak in front of her and he worries that he may not complete after his fourth donation. “How maybe, after the fourth donation, even if you’ve technically completed, you’re still conscious in some sort of way; how then you find out there are more donations, plenty of them, on the other side of that line; how there are no more recovery centres, no cares, no friends; how there’s nothing to do except watch you remaining donations until they switch you off” (page 255 – 256). He pushes her away because she’s not a donor and can’t understand what he’s going through. She’s angry and walks off, but they later make up and he asks her if she isn’t tired and wouldn’t want to complete. But she believes she just has to keep going and they decide to rather leave the subject alone than have another fight. Then Tommy says to her: “I suppose you’re right, Kath. You are a really good carer. You’d be the perfect one for me too if you weren’t you…I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it’s just too much. The current’s too strong, They’ve got to let go, drift apart. That’s how I think it is with us. It’s a shame, Kathy, because we’ve loved each other all our lives. But in the end we can’t stay together forever” (page 258 – 259). They say goodbye and Tommy completes.